Universal Pre-Kindergarten Isn't Worth It

We all know why the federal government, long ago, injected itself into the American education system. Big government progressives knew they couldn't control what schools were teaching, and, of course, progressives must have control over every facet of our lives.

So they began offering carrots to the states in the form of federal funding for schools. Naturally, whenever one takes the bait from the feds, there must be strings attached. However, the states, also run by progressives, had for years been overspending to the point where they didn't care how big the stick of control was that came with the carrot of all that "free" cash.

The reasoning the states always give for taking the federal largess was and is, "if we don't take it, someone else will." And so now the feds control K-12 and beyond - from curriculum to school lunch. All this in an effort to indoctrinate children into a progressive, socialistic lifestyle. It has never had anything to do with "educating" anyone.

But, evidently, kindergarten is simply too late to start the indoctrination process. The feds need a true cradle to career (in government) program. And so came the cries from the left for universal day care and pre-K.

And why not? Parents don't know how to raise children. They don't have the academic early education degrees to rear their own children. That's just silly!

So leftist mayors like New York City's Bill de Blasio and President Obama began pushing for universal pre-kindergarten. Mayor de Blasio said, "We're ready to offer high quality, full day, universal pre-K this September for 53,000 New York City children."

Obama has asked for $750 million for his pre-K program saying: "Research shows that one of the best investments we can make in a child's life is high-quality early education. I am again calling on the Congress to make high-quality preschool available to every four-year-old child."

So now they want your four-year-old. And they want him or her, not for a few hours, but all day. But is it as Obama states—that "research" shows it is the best investment? Evidently not.

It seems that a paper entitled "Non-cognitive Deficits and Young Adult Outcomes: The Long Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program" begs to differ. And the kicker is that one of the authors is none other than Mr. Obamacare himself, Jonathan Gruber.

The paper concludes that, "Looking at the effects of universal childcare in Québec, the researchers determined that the negative non-cognitive affects resulting from the program outweigh any cognitive gains… and perhaps more alarmingly, they linger into older (school) ages."

And what, you may ask, are these "negative effects?" The results of the paper are that, "We find that the Québec policy had a lasting negative impact on the non-cognitive skills of exposed children, but no consistent impact on their cognitive skills. At older ages, program exposure is associated with worsened health and life satisfaction, and increased rates of criminal activity. Increases in aggression and hyperactivity are concentrated in boys, as is the rise in crime rates."

How could this be? The little tykes are being shipped off to learn from professional, highly educated academics. Their environment should be positively utopian. Could it be that it's more important for these little tykes to be home, loved and nurtured by their parents, than it is to be able to read The Odyssey at age 5? Hmmm.

But that's not really the point of cradle to career (in government) education, as progressives envision it.

It is, as it always has been and always will be, about control and the building of the perfect (and unachievable) progressive utopian society. Or, as Woodrow Wilson (evil progressive) wrote: "there will be the family [all of society] in a great building whose noble architecture will at last be disclosed, where men can live as a single community, cooperative as in a perfected, coordinated beehive."

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About the AuthorThe Common Constitutionalist

Brent, aka The Common Constitutionalist, is a Constitutional Conservative, and advocates for first principles, founders original intent and enemy of progressives. As well as publisher of the Common Constitutional blog, he also is a contributing writer for Political Outcast, Godfather Politics, Minute Men News (Liberty Alliance) and Free Republic